SOI and other advanced substrates were the basis for dozens of excellent papers at IEDM ’13. Last week we covered the FD-SOI papers (click here if you missed that piece). In this post, we’ll cover the other major SOI et al papers – including those on FinFETs, RF and various advanced devices.

Brief summaries, culled from the program (and some of the actual papers) follow.

This paper about performance boosters is applicable to all flavors of SOI-based devices, including FinFET, planar FD-SOI and partially-depleted SOI. At 22nm for high-performance (HP), IBM is still doing the traditional partially-depleted (PD) SOI. At 14nm, when they go to SOI-FinFETs, one of the channel stressors to boost performance is Silicon-Germanium (cSiGe). To better understand the physics, layout effects and impact of cSiGe on device performance, IBM leveraged their 22nm HP technology to do a comprehensive study. They got a 20% performance boost and 10% Short Channel Effect (SCE) improvement, and showed that this 2nd generation high-performance dual-channel process can be integrated into a manufacturable and yieldable technology, thereby providing a solid platform for introduction of SiGe FinFet technology.

SOI FINFETs are very attractive because of their added immunity to Vt variability due to undoped channels. However, circuit level performance also depends on the effective current (Ieff) variability. According to the advance program, “A first time rigorous experimental study of effective current (Ieff) variability in high-volume manufacturable (HVM) 14nm Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) FINFETs is reported which identifies, threshold voltage (Vtlin), external resistance (Rext), and channel trans-conductance (Gm) as three independent sources of variation. The variability in Gm, Vtlin (AVT=1.4(n)/0.7(p) mV-μm), and Ieff exhibit a linear Pelgrom fit indicating local variations, along with non-zero intercept which suggests the presence of global variations at the wafer level. Relative contribution of Gm to Ieff variability is dominant in FINFETs with small number of fins (Nfin); however, both Gm and Rext variations dominate in large Nfin devices. Relative contribution of Vtlin remains almost independent of Nfin. Both n and p FINFETs show the above mentioned trends.”

In this paper, the researchers thoroughly investigated the impact of the heated ion implantation (I/I) technology on HK/MG SOI FinFET performance and reliability, which it turns out is excellent. They demonstrated that “…the heated I/I brings perfect crystallization after annealing even in ultrathin Si channel. For the first time, it was found that the heated I/I dramatically improves the characteristics such as Ion-Ioff, Vth variability, and bias temperature instability (BTI) for both nMOS and pMOS FinFETs in comparison with conventional room temperature I/I.”

In this paper about boosters in fully-depleted planar SOI and GeOI based devices, the researchers “compared current drivability between (001)/<100> and (001)/<110> strained Ge-on-insulator pMOSFETs under biaxial and uniaxial stress.” They experimentally demonstrated for the first time that in short channel (Lg < 100 nm) devices, <100> channels exhibit higher drive current than <110> channels under both the biaxial- and the uniaxial stress, in spite of the disadvantage in mobility, although this is not the case with longer channel devices. The advantage is attributable to higher drift velocity in high electric field along the direction and becomes more significant for shorter Lg devices. The strained-Ge (001)/<100> channel MOSFET have a potential to serve as pFET of ultimately scaled future CMOS.

With ever-reducing design cycles and time-to-market, design teams need early delivery of a reliable PDK before mature silicon data becomes available. This paper shows that the GSS ‘atomistic’ simulator GARAND used in this study provides accurate prediction of transistor characteristics, performance and variability at the early stages of new technology development and can serve as a reliable source for PDK development of emerging technologies, such as SOI FinFET. Specifically, the authors report on, “…a systematic simulation study of the impact of process and statistical variability and reliability on SRAM cell design in a 14nm technology node SOI FinFET transistors. A comprehensive statistical compact modeling strategy is developed for early delivery of a reliable PDK, which enables TCAD- based transistor-SRAM co-design and path finding for emerging technology nodes.”

In this plenary presentation, Geoffry Yeap, VP of Technology at Qualcomm gave a perspective on state of the art mobile SoCs and RF/analog technologies for RF SOCs. The challenge, he said in his paper, is “…lower power for days of active use”. He cited the backgate for asymmetric gate operation and dynamic Vt control, noting that FinFETs lack an easy way to access the back gates. “This is especially crucial when Vdd continues to scale lower to a point that there is just not sufficient (Vg-Vt) to yield meaningful drive current,” he continued. While he sees FD-SOI “very attractive”, he is concerned about the ecosystem, capacity and starting wafer price.

With respect to RF-SOI, the summary of his talk in the program stated, “Cost/power reduction and unique product capability are enabled by RF front end integration of power amplifiers, antenna switches/tuners and power envelope tracker through a cost-effective RF-SOI instead of the traditional GaAs.”

Advanced Devices

Post-FinFETs, one of the next-generation device architectures being heavily investigated now is gate-all-around (GAA). While FinFETs have gate material on three sides, in GAA devices the gate completely surrounds the channel. A popular fabrication technique is to build them around a nanowire, often on an SOI substrate.

This is a paper about a strained Si (sSi) nanowire array Tunnel FETs (TFETs). The researchers demonstrated that scaled gate all around (GAA) strained Si (sSi) nanowire array (NW) Tunnel FETs (TFETs) allow steep slope switching with remarkable high ION due to optimized tunneling junctions. Very steep tunneling junctions have been achieved by implantations into silicide (IIS) and dopant segregation (DS) with epitaxial Ni(AlxSi1-x)2 source and drain. The low temperature and pulse measurements demonstrate steep slope TFETs with very high I60 as TAT is suppressed. GAA NW TFETs seem less vulnerable to trap assisted tunneling (TAT). Time response analysis of complementary-TFET inverters demonstrated experimentally for the first time that device scaling and improved electrostatics yields to faster time response.

Record Silicon Nanowire MOSFETs: IBM researchers described a silicon nanowire (SiNW)-based MOSFET fabrication process that produced gate-all-around (GAA) SiNW devices at sizes compatible with the scaling needs of 10-nm CMOS technology. They built a range of GAA SiNW MOSFETs, some of which featured an incredible 30-nm SiNW pitch (the spacing between adjacent nanowires) with a gate pitch of 60 nm. Devices with a 90-nm gate pitch demonstrated the highest performance ever reported for a SiNW device at a gate pitch below 100 nm— peak/saturation current of 400/976 µA/µm, respectively, at 1 V. Although this work focused on NFETs, the researchers say the same fabrication techniques can be used to produce PFETs as well, opening the door to a potential ultra-dense, high-performance CMOS technology.

26.4 FDSOI Nanowires: An Opportunity for Hybrid Circuit with Field Effect and Single Electron Transistors (Invited) (Leti)

This paper is about nanowires and single electron transistors (SET). As indicated in the program, “When FDSOI nanowires width is scaled down to 5nm, the nanowires can encounter a dramatic transition to single electron transistor characteristics. This enables the first room temperature demonstration of hybrid SET-FET circuits thus paving the way for new logic paradigms based on SETs. Further scaling would rely on deterministic dopant positioning. We have also shown that Si based electron pumps using tunable barriers based on FETs are promising candidates to realize the quantum definition of the Ampere.”

In this paper about GAA and nanowires, the researchers report “…the first demonstration of germanium (Ge) GAA nanowire (NW) p-FETs integrated with a contractable liner stressor. High performance GAA NW p-FET featuring the smallest wire width WNW of ~3.5 nm was fabricated. Peak intrinsic Gm of 581 μS/μm and SS of 125 mV/dec was demonstrated. When the Ge NW p-FETs were integrated with the phase change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) as a liner stressor, the high asymmetric strain was induced in the channel to boost the hole mobility, leading to ~95% intrinsic Gm,lin and ~34% Gm,sat enhancement. Strain and mobility simulations show good scalability of GST liner stressor and great potential for hole mobility enhancement.”

III-V, More Than Moore and Other Interesting Topics

28.5 More than Moore: III-V Devices and Si CMOS Get It Together (Invited) (Raytheon)

This is continuation of a major ongoing III-V and CMOS integration project that Raytheon et al wrote about in ASN five years ago (see article here). As noted in the IEDM program, the authors “…summarize results on the successful integration of III-V electronic devices with Si CMOS on a common silicon substrate using a fabrication process similar to SiGe BiCMOS. The heterogeneous integration of III-V devices with Si CMOS enables a new class of high performance, ‘digitally assisted’, mixed signal and RF ICs.

In this paper, the authors explore the reliability issues faced by the next generation of devices. As they note in the description of the paper in the program, “Extrinsic atmospheric radiations are today as important to IC reliability as intrinsic failure modes. More and more industry segments are impacted. Sub-40nm downscaling has a profound impact on the Soft Error Rate (SER) of BULK technologies. The enhanced resilience of latest SOI technologies will fortunately help leveraging existing robust design solutions.”

Luxtera’s work on Silicon Photonics and now products based on integrated optical communications has been covered here at ASN for years. In this paper Luxtera and ST (which now is Luxtera’s manufacturing partner) present a low-cost 300mm Silicon Photonics platform for 25Gb/s application compatible with 3D integration and featuring competitive optical passive and active performance. This platform aims at industrialization and offering to system designers a wide choice of electronic IC, targeting markets applications in the field of Active optical cables, optical Modules, Backplanes and Silicon Photonics Interposer.

InGaAs is a promising channel material for high-performance, ultra-low-power n-MOSFETs because of its high electron mobility, but multiple-gate architectures are required to make the most of it, because multiple gates offer better control of electrostatics. In addition, it is difficult to integrate highly crystalline InGaAs with silicon, so having multiple gates offers the opportunity to take advantage of the optimum crystal facet of the material for integration. A research team led by Japan’s AIST built triangular InGaAs-on-insulator nMOSFETs with smooth side surfaces along the <111>B crystal facet and with bottom widths as narrow as 30 nm, using a metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) growth technique. The devices demonstrated a high on-current of 930 μA/μm at a 300-nm gate length, showing they have great potential for ultra-low power and high performance CMOS applications.

This is a paper on flexible electronics for display and imaging systems. “The world’s first flexible ultra-thin-body SOI single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is reported by device layer transfer to plastic with peak PDP at 11%, DCR around 20kHz and negligible after pulsing and cross-talk. It compares favorably with CMOS SPADs while it can operate both in FSI and BSI with 10mm bend diameter,” say the researchers.

11.7 Local Transfer of Single-Crystalline Silicon (100) Layer by Meniscus Force and Its Application to High-Performance MOSFET Fabrication on Glass Substrate (Hiroshima U.)

In this is a paper on flexible electronics for display and imaging systems, the researchers “…propose a novel low-temperature local layer transfer technique using meniscus force. Local transfer of the thermally-oxidized SOI layer to glass was carried out without any problem. The n-channel MOSFET fabricated on glass using the SOI layer showed very high mobility of 742 cm2V-1s-1, low threshold voltage of 1.5 V. These results suggest that the proposed (meniscus force-mediated layer transfer) technique (MLT) and MOSFET fabrication process opens up a new field of silicon applications that is independent of scaling.”

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About the author

Adele HARS

Editor-in-Chief at Advanced Substrate News - Director at High Tech International
Adele Hars has been the Editor-in-Chief of Advanced Substrate News since its creation in 2005.
She has been writing in and around the electronics industry for over 25 years. As a contributing editor, she first wrote about SOI for Semiconductor International in the mid-1990's. Over the years, her work appeared in EETimes, Design News, Lightwave, Control Engineering, Byte, Computer Graphics World, Automotive Industries, Multichannel News and more. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College.